The evaluation report will often contain recommendations for further actions and these may lead to new project ideas. Recommendations may relate to processes and procedures within the organisation. Project evaluation and debriefing can be a learning experience for the organisation as a whole, as well as for individuals. For example, British Petroleum gathers the lessons learnt from post-project appraisals in a series of booklets that are then used as guidance for writing project proposals. In

When planning what data to use in the evaluation it is helpful to consider how the data will be analysed. Usually, there are a lot of data, perhaps in several different forms. If you have set clear objectives, it should be possible to identify the data that are relevant to each issue. It is usual to follow the steps below:

consider numbers, for example how much has been achieved at what cost;

Activity 4

Different types of evaluation may take place at the end of a project. A common one is determining the extent to which the project outcomes have been achieved. This is often done in a meeting of the sponsor, key stakeholders and project team leaders, and sometimes informed by reports from key perspectives. An evaluation of this nature may be the final stage of the project, and the main purpose might be to ensure that the project has met all of the contracted expectations and can be ‘signed o

At this stage the project activities are monitored to determine how their timing, quality and cost match the plan. The results of this monitoring are reviewed to see whether the plan needs to be modified. New environmental conditions may indicate the need to change the organisation's strategic direction. It might be necessary in that case to re-align the project, so that the outcomes relate to the new direction. In some cases it may be necessary to abort the project, if it is no longer approp

It is helpful to consider closure as, in effect, a mini-project, and to plan for it as a distinct set of activities. We have seen that, once the project has been recognised as successful and all of the key milestones have been achieved, reaching the final milestone – closing the project – can seem an anticlimax. One way to focus attention on the work that still needs to be done is to prepare a detailed checklist.

You can deliver the outcomes agreed with the minimum of fuss or celebration – or you can deliver with style. A project that is delivered so that it meets the outcome requirements exactly and is on time and within the budget allowed will usually be well received.

In many projects the moment of final delivery may not be clearly defined, as different elements may have different times and modes of delivery. However, each delivery offers an opportunity to please the client by making the pr

The outputs of a project should be defined at the planning stage, including any conditions that will be required for a smooth transfer. Each outcome should be formally handed over to the sponsor who should confirm their delivery (‘sign them off’) so that there is no dispute about whether outcomes have been completed.

A closure list is likely to have sections to include the following groups of tasks, but each project will have different features to consider. A list of suggested areas

The importance of budget, time and quality to the success of projects means that they are often managed as technical systems rather than behavioural systems. Yet mismanagement of the ‘people’ aspects of projects is as likely to contribute to their failure as neglect of the ‘hard’ dimensions of project management. This is because the successful implementation of any kind of project requires the effective deployment of human as well as material resources. Indeed, without people, no proj

The law and social work in Scotland This album tackles the complex relationships social workers experience in the wide spectrum of their work, from those with families affected by social deprivation to those with judges, lawyers and other members of the legal system. The tracks analyse the role of the family in Scottish life in relation to the many voluntary bodies that exist to assist and inform them, and the legal obligations of social workers. Participants from single mothers to solicitors presented their perspectives in a serAuthor(s): The iTunes U team

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Managing care In the arenas of health and social work, management is a crucial part of ensuring quality of service and care for users and staff, and the development of services and standards into the future. The discussions and interviews in this album focus on the importance of management strategies and techniques and garner the opinions and insights of staff at all levels, as well as those in care. These in-depth and frank audio tracks give a real-life sense of the managerial experience, including starting Author(s): The iTunes U team

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Social Care: Past and Present Issues surrounding care and welfare affect people in many different ways - it may depend on individual circumstances or on the location and nature of the community. The tracks on this album look at welfare issues faced by different communities across the UK, focusing mainly on care of the elderly, and people with physical or mental disabilities. The album also explores how care and welfare in the community has changed over the years. This material was part of The Open University course K202 CAuthor(s): The iTunes U team

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Social work learning practice This free audio course, Social work learning practice, focuses on the importance of people's backgrounds and experiences in the field of social work. It identifies the diverse ways in which service users and social workers define themselves, helping you to understand how the two groups perceive each other and relate successfully to each other.
An understanding of how people make sense of their experiences will help you to define yourself, and your own place within the process.Author(s): Creator not set

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In this first course, you will be hearing and reading about the issues faced by people living in poverty in Britain in 2000. This is intended to give you an understanding of what poverty is like from the perspective of the people themselves, both in terms of the experience of living on a very low income, and some of the effects this has had on their lives. One of the biggest problems facing people living on a very low income is how to afford adequate heating.

This course helps you to explore the extent to which death and dying in western societies are medical events and what aspects of death and dying might be neglected as a consequence. The course covers the way that such things as medicine provide the context of the experiences associated with the end of life.

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course : Author(s): The Open University

Is there a Europe beyond the EU? This is a question that becomes more and more difficult to answer. It is quite common for example to hear of such or such a country wishing to ‘join Europe’, when what is meant is that they wish to apply to join the EU.

The criteria for joining the EU were laid down in the summit of Copenhagen, 21 and 22 June 1993. Candidates must have reached an institutional stability that guarantees democracy, legality, human rights, and the respect and protection

The problem of who, or what, are ‘Europeans’ is at the centre of many of the most acute political and social issues confronting contemporary Europe. Can a genuine European identity be constructed within Europe, and if so on what basis? This question is of even greater importance as the European Union expands and becomes ever more multicultural in character. This unit examines the ways in which European identities are – or are not – being forged across Europe. It assesses the various

We turn now to consider Diana as an icon, as the subject of discourse. It could be said that Diana and the many words written about her form a discursive space (Gilbert et al., 1999; Silverstone, 1998). She is the rather enigmatic centre of many competing representations of royalty, femininity, democracy, the family, morality, celebrity, fashion, private versus public life which jostle with each other. Such a discursive space is a place of argument. To use another metaphor, it i

Some of the thinking behind the claim that discourse is social action has now been unpacked. But what explains the order and pattern in this social action? One source of regularity is the discursive practices which people collectively draw on to organize their conduct. Take a look back again at Extract 1. Even this short piece of discourse reveals many complex layers of these practices. It reveals that there is such a thing as an interaction order to use a concept developed by